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Paddy Power Betfair suffered a £5m hit after the shock election victory of Donald Trump late last year in the bookie’s biggest ever loss in political betting.

The election upset was the start of a run of bad luck for the bookie, which was forced to make eye-watering payouts after a string of "customer-friendly" sporting results.

Paddy Power said even though the number of bets placed in the fourth quarter was higher than the year before in the three months to the end of December, the results favoured the punters and cost it a total of $40m.

“This started with the unexpected US election outcome, which cost the group almost £5m, and concluded with our European sportsbooks losing money on football...